The Mines of Muribeca - From David Hatcher Childress ...
In the next 150 years, many hardy and unscrupulous Portuguese
adventurers set out on dangerous trails with the avowed purpose
of locating these lost mines of the Moribeca. These bandeiristas
wandered through dense forests, camped in clearings on the banks
of unknown rivers, with fierce Indians lurking in the shades to send
forth showers of poisoned arrows. They defied every danger of man,
fever and insects, the jungle devils, and the famine and demon
ticks of the catinga\ but the mystery of the lost mines remained un-
solved.
Now, came the year 1743, and a native of Minas Geraes whose
name has perished started with other bandeiristas (five of them
Portuguese), two samboes (negro slaves), and 300 Indians on the
trail of these lost mines of the Moribeca. What cared they if a
buffoon and jogral in Rio, by name of P. Silverio da Paraopeba,
had gibed at them, in a little poem about the adventures of crazy
bandeirantes and bandeiristas, "bitten by gold bugs"? Anyhow, they
never read poems, even if they could read at all. So, let him and his
japing fellow-scribblers take a Brazilian cdbaga of yerba-mat^,
and go to Hades !
This mid-eighteenth century expedition was well armed, and in-
tended to live on the country. No pack animals, or even the toughest
and most leathery-stomached of mules could be taken into the
Brazilian sertao. It was, as it is today, land of snakes and cougars
and of the snarling, prowling el tigre, with water for fever-stric
4O MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT SOUTH AMERICA
men only to be found in the depths of the sandstone gorges through
which turbulent rivers, cluttered with fallen boulders, flowed to
dash and foam over catadupas, or cataracts.
This expedition was away for ten long years, enduring incredible
hardships and braving great perils. Their very memory had been for-
gotten by the most caustic- tongued of satirical scribblers in Rio and
Bahia, when, one day, in the year 1753, an emaciated remnant of
the band staggered in from the unknown and halted at a J "agenda
in some little and obscure povoofao in the province of Bahia. They
were almost dead with hunger, fatigue and misery. Reduced to
rags and bones ! There, in the cool of the evening of a hot day, one
of these bandeiristas, sitting under the eaves of the verandah, wrote
an astonishing story of their travels and adventures. The implica-
tions of his story were too amazing to have been realised or per-
ceived by so unlettered a man, though he had a picturesque style
of writing. Nor may one wonder at that ; for only in very recent
years have they become known to historians or scholars, few or
none of whom are native Brazilians, or even North Americans.
When this soldier of fortune and man of action took up the quill
pen in his stiffened fingers in the backwoods of old Bahia, he never
dreamt that he was drawing aside a veil from a Lost World, drowned
in the waters of the ocean, split, rocked and exploded by titanic
earthquakes and tellurian and submarine convulsions, many thou-
sands of years before the ancient Egyptians were building their
very early and most ancient step pyramids, at Sakkarah, on the
Nile, more than 6,800 miles over the South Atlantic Ocean, east-
wards.
This manuscript of an old bandeirista eventually reached the
Portuguese viceroy in Rio de Janeiro. He clearly thought it held the
secret of great riches, and some long-lost mines; for someone in the
entourage hid it in the official archives and steadfastly denied that it
had ever existed, or had been received. They hoped to make a great
and exclusive discovery, aided by this derrotero, as the old Spanish
treasure hunters called such documents in Quito (Ecuador) and other
parts of the old Spanish South American Empire. The manuscript
became lost to sight and memory, and all trace of it vanished, from
the year 1760 until 1841, when a Brazilian historian and archivist,
Senhor Lagos, found it hidden in the archives of the old royal public
library in Rio de Janeiro, where I, myself, saw it in 1938-9.
It is unfortunate that the insect called the copim has attacked the
old parchment, so that many valuable leaves, significant words and
parts of words are missing; but enough is left to indicate the startling
nature of the discoveries and the fascinating and rather eerie adven-
tures of these bandeiristas of 1743-1753.
In the autumn of 1939 I obtained a transcript of the document,
thanks to the courtesy of Mr. W. G. tiurdett, American Consul-
DEAD CITIES OF ANCIENT BRAZIL 41
General in Rio. Thereafter, I spent many weeks translating from the
Portuguese and studying this amazing document, and also others,
not Known to American archivists and historians, but found in
official archives in the provinces of SSo Paulo or Rio, and concerned
with these stories of abandoned cities of unknown date and history.
Herewith, for the first time in the English language, I set down
this remarkable story of men who, unknown to themselves, were
peering into a dead world of the most ancient civilisation we know.
"Rela$ao historica de huma occulta, e grande povoagoe
antiguissima sem moradores, que se descubrio no anno de
(Historical Relation of a hidden and great city of ancient date,
without inhabitants, that was discovered in the year 1753).
Em a America (in America) ..............................
nos interiores (we inland) ....................................
contiguous aos (next to the) ................................
Mestre de Can (Master of Can) ..............................
and his band (commitiva), having for ten years journeyed in the wilds
(sertoes) to see if we could locate the famous silver mines of the
Great Moribeca (who, by the wickedness \culpa\ of a Governor, was
not granted letters patent, because the Governor wanted to take the
silver mines for himself and the glory thereof, and he, the Moribeca,
was kept prisoner in Bahia, till he died, which was done to worm out
of him the location of the silver mines. This account came to Rio
de Janeiro, in the beginning of the year 1754 . . ."
(The blanks in the introduction and the text, following, are, as
I stated, caused by the gnawing of the copim insect. In both West
Indies and South America, archives and old newspapers are anni-
hilated by insects.)
"After long and wearisome wanderings, incited by the insatiable
lust for gold, and almost lost in the many years we wandered, in
these wilds of Brazil, we discovered a cordillera of mountains, so
high that they drew near the ethereal region (chegaoSo a regido
etherea), and served as a throne of the winds, under the stars; their
lustre, from afar, excited our wonder and admiration, principally
when the sun shining on them turned to fires the crystals of which
the rocks were composed. The view was so beautiful that none could
take their eyes from the reflections. It began to rain before we came
near enough to take note of these crystalline marvels, and we saw
above. .The spectacle was bare and sterile rocks, the waters pre-
cipitated themselves from the heights, foaming white, like snow,
struck and turned to fire by the rays of the sun, like thunderbolts.
Delighted by the pleasing vistas of that ........ blended ........
shone and glistered * ....... of the waters and the tranquillity ......
42 MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT SOUTH AMERICA
,'
of the day or weather (do tempo), we determined to investigate
these prodigious marvels of nature, spread out before us, at the foot
of the mountains, without hindrance of forests or rivers that would
make it difficult for us to cross them. But when we walked round
the foot of the cordillera we found no open way or pass into the
recesses of these Alps and Pyrenees of Brazil. So there resulted for
us, from this disappointment, an inexplicable sadness.
"We grew weary and intended to retrace our steps, the next day,
when it came to pass that one of our negroes, gathering dried sticks,
saw a white deer (hum veado branco), and, by that accident, as it
fled away, he discovered a road between two sierras, that appeared
to have been made by man and not the work of Nature. We were
made joyful by this discovery and we started to ascend the road, but
found a great boulder that had fallen and broken all to pieces at a
spot where, we judged, a paved way (calfadd) had been violently
upheaved in some far-off day. We spent a good three hours in the
ascent of that ancient road, being fascinated by the crystals, at
which we marvelled, as they blazed and scintillated in many flash-
ing colours from the rocks. On the summit of the pass through the
mountain, we came to a halt.
"Thence, spread out before our eyes, we saw in the open plain
(campo raso) greater spectacles (demonstrafdes) for our vision of
admiration and wonder. At the distance of about a league, as we
judged, we saw a great city (povoado grande), and we estimated, by
the extent and sight of it, that it must be some city of the court of
Brazil ; we at once descended the road towards the valley, but with
great caution would be, in like case, ordered to explore
by quality and if so well as they had noticed
smokes (famines]?])^ that being one of the evident signs or
vestiges of the place (povoafdo).
"Two days we waited, wondering whether to send out scouts,
for the end we longed for, and all alone, we waited till daybreak,
in great doubt and confused perplexity of mind, trying to guess if
the city had any people in it. But it became clear to us there were no
inhabitants. An Indian of our bandeirantes determined, after two days
of hesitation, to risk his life in scouting by way of precaution ; but
he returned, amazing us by affirming he had met no one ; nor could
discover footsteps or traces of any person whatever. This so con-
founded us that we could not believe we saw dwellings or buildings,
and so, all the scouts (os exploradores) in a body, followed in the steps
of the Indian. . . ."
"They now saw for themselves that it was true the great city was
uninhabited. We, all, therefore* now decided to enter the place,
our arms ready for instant use, at daybreak. At our entry we met
none to bar our way, and we encountered no other road except
the one which led to the dead city. This, we entered under three
DEAD CITIES OF ANCIENT BRAZIL 4$
arches (arcos) of great height, the middle arch being the greatest,
and the two of the sides being but small ; under the great and prin-
cipal arch we made out letters, which we could not copy, owing to
their great height above the ground.
"Behind, was a street as wide as the three arches, with, here
and there, houses of very large size, whose facades of sculptured
stone, already blackened with age; alone inscriptions,
all open to the day (todos abertas) decreases of
observing, by the regularity and symmetry with which they were
made, that they appeared to have one owner only, being, in reality,
very numerous, so that [they stood] with their terraces open to the
day, without one tile ; for the houses had, some of them, burnt
floors; others, large flagstones.
"We went, with fear and trembling, into some of the houses,
and in none did we find vestiges of furniture, or moveable objects
by which, or whose use, we might guess at the sort of people who had
dwelt therein. The houses were all dark, in the interior, and hardly
could the light of day penetrate, even at its dimmest, and, as the
vaults gave back the echoes of our speech, the sound of our voices
terrified us. We went on into the strange city and we came on a
road (street : rua) of great length, and a well set-out plaza (urna
praga regular) , besides, in it, and in the middle of the plaza a column
of black stone of extraordinary grandeur, on whose summit was a
statue of a man (homen ordinario : not a god, or demi-god) with a
hand on the left hip and right arm out-stretched, pointing with the
index finger to the north pole ; and each corner of the said plaza is
an obelisk like those among the Romans, but now badly damaged,
and cleft as by thunderbolts.
"On the right side of the plaza is a superb building, as it were the
principal town-house of some great lord of the land; there is a great
hall (salao) at the entrance, but still being awed and afraid, not all
of us entered in the hou being so many and the retre
ed to form some ed we encounter a mass of extra-
ordin it was difficult for him to lift it, .......
"The bats were so numerous that they fluttered in swarms
round the faces of our people, and made so much noise that it was
astonishing. Above the principal portico of the street is a figure in
half-relief, cut out of the same stone, and naked from the waist
upward, crowned with laurel, representing a person of youthful
years, without beard, with a girdle (banda) around him, and an under-
garment (urn fraldelim) open in front at the waist, underneath the
shield (escudo) of this figure are certain characters, now badly
defaced by time, but we made out the following :
44 MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT SOUTH AMERICA
"On the left side of the plaza is another totally ruined building,
and the vestiges remaining well show that it was a temple, because
of the still standing side of its magnificent fagade, and certain naves
of stone, standing entire. It covers much ground, and in the ruined
halls are seen works of beauty, with other statues of portraits inlaid
in the stone, with crosses of various shapes, curves (arches[?] corvos)
and many other figures that would take too long to describe here.
"Beyond this building a great part of the city lies completely
in ruins, and buried under great masses of earth, and frightful
crevasses in the ground, and in all this expanse of utter desolation
there is seen no grass, herb, tree, or plant produced by nature, but
only mountainous heaps of stone, some raw (that is, unworked),
others worked and carved, whereby we understood they
because again among of corpses that
and part of this unhappy and overthrown, perhaps, by
some earthquake.
"Opposite this plaza, there runs very swiftly a most deep
(cauddosd) and wide river, with spacious banks, that were very
pleasing to the eye : it was eleven to twelve fathoms in width, with-
out reckoning the windings, clear and bared at its banks of groves,
as of trees and of the trunks that are often brought down in floods.
We sounded its depths and found the deepest parts to be fifteen or
sixteen fathoms. The country beyond consists wholly of very green
and flourishing fields, and so blooming with a variety of flowers
that it seemed as if Nature, more attentive to these parts, had laid
herself out to create the most beautiful gardens of Flora : we gazed,
too, in admiration and astonishment at certain lakes covered with
wild rice plants from which we profited, and also at the innumerable
flocks of geese that bred in these fertile plains (compos) ; but it would
have been difficult to sound their depths with the hand, in the
absence of a sounding-rod.
"Three days we journeyed down the river, and we stumbled
on a cataract (uma catadupa) of such roaring noise and commotion
of foaming waters, that we supposed the mouths of the much talked
of Nile could not have made more trouble or booming, or offered
more resistance to our further progress. Afterwards, the river spreads
out so much from this cascade that it appears to be a great Ocean
(que parece o grande Oceano). It is all full of peninsulas, covered with
green grass, with groves of trees, here and there, that make
pleas Here, we find
for want of it, we the
variety of game many created brings without hunters
to hunt and chase them.
"On the eastern side of this cataract, we found various sub-
terranean hollows (subcavoes] and frightful holes, and made trial of
their depths with manv rot>es : but, after manv attempts we were
DEAD CITIES OF ANCIENT BRAZIL 45
never able to plumb their depths* We found, besides, certain broken
stones,, and [lying] on the surface of the ground, thrown down, with
bars of silver (crevadas de prata) that may have been extracted from
the mines, abandoned at the time.
" Among these caverns (fwnas) we saw some covered with a great
flagstone, with the following figures cut into it, that suggest a great
mystery. They are as follows:
"Over the portico of the temple, we saw, besides, the following
forms:
f
"Distant a cannon-shot from the abandoned city is a building
like a country house (casa de campo), with a frontage of 250 feet. It
is approached by a great portico, from which a stairway built with
stones of various colours is seen to be leading into a great chamber
(sala) y and from that there lead out fifteen small rooms, each with
a door communicating with the said great chamber. Each room
has its waterspout (or fountain : bica de agua) ....................
the which water meets ...................... in the exterior
courtyard .................................. colonnades in the
sur .................................... squared and fashioned
by hand, overhung with the characters following :
"Thence, leaving that marvel, we went down to the banks of the
river to see whether we could find gold, and without difficulty, we
saw, on the surface of the soil, a fine trail promising great riches,
as well of gold, as of silver : we marvelled that this place had been
abandoned by those who had formerly inhabited it; for, with all
our careful investigations and great diligence we had met no per-
son, in this wilderness, who might tell us of this deplorable marvel
of an abandoned city, whose ruins, statues and grandeur, attested its
former populousness, wealth, and its flourishing in the centuries
past; whereas, today, it is inhabited by swallows, bats, rats and
foxes, that, fed on the innumerable swarms of hens and geese, have
become bigger than a pointer dog. The rats have the tails so short
that they leap like fleas and do not run or walk, as they do in other
places.
46 MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT SOUTH AMERICA
"At this place, the band separated, and one company, joined
by others, journeyed forward, and, after nine days' long marchings,
saw, at a distance, on the bank of a great bay (enseada) into which
the river spreads, a canoe with some white persons, with long, flow-
ing, black hair, dressed like Europeans
a gunshot fired as a signal to
for they escaped. They had
shaggy and wild their
hair is plaited and they wear clothes.
"One of our company, named Joao Antonio, found in the ruins
of a house a piece of gold money, of spherical shape, greater than
our Brazilian coin of 6,400 reis : on one side was an image, or figure
of a kneeling youth ; on the other, a bow, a crown, and an arrow
(setta), of which coins we doubted not to have found many in the
abandoned city; since it was overthrown by an eathquake, which
gave no time, so sudden was its onset, to take away precious objects ;
but it needs a very powerful arm to turn over the rubbish, accumu-
lated in so many long years, as we saw.
"This news is sent to your Honour from the interior of the
province of Bahia and from the rivers Pard-oacu and Una, and
assuring you that we shall give information to no person, whatso-
ever; for we judge the villages are empty of people and boat owners.
But I have given to your Honour the mine we have discovered,
reminded of the great deal that is owed to you.
"Supposing that from our band, one of our company went
forth, at this time, with a different pretence .... he may, with great
harm to your Honour, abandon his poverty and come to use these
great things for his own benefit, taking great care to bribe that
Indian [therefore], so as to spoil his purpose and lead your Honour
to these great treasures, etc
would find, in the entrances .
flagstones
Here are found, in the Portuguese MS., the strange, unknown
characters following. They appear to have been engraved on the
great stones, sealing the vault of treasure, or the mausolea (?),
whose apertures and fastenings the bandeiristas, using all their
strength, could not force wider, or open :
DEAD CITIES OF ANCIENT BRAZIL 47
So ends the strange story of the bandeiristas of Minas Geraes.
It ipay strike the reader, as it did myself, when I saw this docu-
ment, that, out of these forty-one characters, no fewer than twenty
are almost identical in form with the letters of the Greek alphabet ;
kappa, upsilon, zeta, phi, iota, gamma, beta, omicron, sigma>
omega, lambda, chi, epsilon, psi (?), theta, nu, while two of the
signs are remarkably like Arabic numerals. The startling signifi-
cances of these amazing identities are, I propose to show, not
accidental in their relationship to the Phoenician-Greek alphabet.
These strange inscriptions on the flagstones of the vaults (?),
found so far apart as Ceylon and the Brazilian highlands (as
will be seen, infra), must be the oldest existing in the whole
world.
